In June, President Joe Biden spoke at Chicago’s Old Post Office. PHOTO: ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
By James Freeman | The Wall Street Journal
Festivus has its airing of grievances and the 2024 Democratic National Convention in August may feature the wailing of self-reproach. Some readers may be imagining the intrigue as ambivalent delegates wonder if they really have to nominate Joe Biden for president again. Others may puzzle over Democrats’ decision to gather in Chicago, a violent and expensive monument to the failures of progressive governance. But the choice of venue is even worse than many realize and seems bound to inspire a rush of regret. A series of events will serve to highlight not just Democratic dysfunction but corruption as well.
Democrats have dominated Chicago politics for close to a century, and the results are not improving with time. Last week the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois announced:
A federal jury today convicted former City of Chicago Alderman EDWARD M. BURKE on racketeering, bribery, and extortion charges for allegedly abusing his position while an alderman to solicit and extort private legal work and other benefits from companies and individuals with business before the city.
Burke, 79, of Chicago, was found guilty on 13 counts: racketeering; corruptly soliciting, demanding, accepting, or agreeing to accept things of value; using an interstate facility to promote unlawful activity; and attempted extortion…
The racketeering and extortion counts are punishable by up to 20 years in federal prison. The counts for corruptly soliciting and accepting things of value are punishable by up to ten years,
Sentencing is scheduled for June 19, two months before the convention, and the biggest Democratic corruption trial hasn’t even begun yet. In the Chicago Tribune Ray Long, Jason Meisner and Megan Crepeau report:
Generations of Chicagoans accustomed to grimy politics might view former Ald. Ed Burke’s federal racketeering conviction last week as just another case in a long conga line of crooked aldermen.
But Burke was an undisputed Democratic kingpin… The pre-Christmas verdict also capped a year of extraordinary public corruption victories racked up by federal prosecutors in cases arising from a sweeping investigation of ex-Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, the once-all-powerful state Democratic Party chairman.
Burke’s conviction and Madigan’s upcoming federal corruption trial mark the end of an era for the two legendary Southwest Side Democrats from neighboring wards who long held almost unchecked political power.
Read more here.